If you deal with customers or colleagues in Europe, often you may see numbers like this:
- 1.433.502,50
- 9.324,00
- 3,141593
When these numbers are pasted in Excel, they become text, because Excel can’t understand them.
Here is a simple way to convert the European numbers to regular ones.
Use NUMBERVALUE() Function.
How to convert European number formats with NUMBERVALUE() ?
Let’s say you have a European format number in cell A1, something like 1.433.502,50
Syntax of NUMBERVALUE():
NUMBERVALUE() takes 3 parameters.
- Number you want to convert
- Decimal separator
- Group separator
So, we can use =NUMBERVALUE(A1 , "," , ".") to convert number in A1 from European format.
Since , is the decimal point and . is the group separator in European format, NUMBERVALUE() returns 1433502.5
How to convert European number formats in earlier versions of Excel
NUMBERVALUE() is a new function added in Excel 2013. So if you are using an earlier version of Excel, then you need to come up with an alternative function. Here is one that works:
=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A1, "." , "" ), "," , ".")+0
How does this work?
- We first substitute all .s with nothing – Inner SUBSTITUTE
- Then we substitute , with . – Outer SUBSTITUE
- Then we add 0 to convert text to number
Convert regular numbers to European format
Let’s say for some reason you need convert numbers to European format. Here is one formula you can use:
=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(FIXED(A1,2,FALSE),".","$"),",","."),"$",",")
How it works?
FIXED(A1,2,FALSE)converts the number in A1 to a comma formatted number with 2 decimal pointsSUBSTITUTE(FIXED(...), ".", "$")replaces the decimal point with $ symbol (you can replace it with any symbol)SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(FIXED(...),...), "," ,".")replaces all the commas with .sSUBSTITUTE(...., "$", ",")replaces the $ with comma
More tips on number conversions in Excel
If you deal with data that needs conversion, check out below tips.
- Quickly convert numbers stored as text
- Extract numbers from text using VBA
- Splitting a number in to integer and decimal portions
- Presenting values in Indian currency format
How do you convert numbers to European format?
I never saw the NUMBERVALUE function until yesterday. I think it is a cool function to solve the format problem.
What about you? How do you convert numbers to / from European format (or back)? Please share your formulas in comments.
8 Responses to “Pivot Tables from large data-sets – 5 examples”
Do you have links to any sites that can provide free, large, test data sets. Both large in diversity and large in total number of rows.
Good question Ron. I suggest checking out kaggle.com, data.world or create your own with randbetween(). You can also get a complex business data-set from Microsoft Power BI website. It is contoso retail data.
Hi Chandoo,
I work with large data sets all the time (80-200MB files with 100Ks of rows and 20-40 columns) and I've taken a few steps to reduce the size (20-60MB) so they can better shared and work more quickly. These steps include: creating custom calculations in the pivot instead of having additional data columns, deleting the data tab and saving as an xlsb. I've even tried indexmatch instead of vlookup--although I'm not sure that saved much. Are there any other tricks to further reduce the file size? thanks, Steve
Hi Steve,
Good tips on how to reduce the file size and / or process time. Another thing I would definitely try is to use Data Model to load the data rather than keep it in the file. You would be,
1. connect to source data file thru Power Query
2. filter away any columns / rows that are not needed
3. load the data to model
4. make pivots from it
This would reduce the file size while providing all the answers you need.
Give it a try. See this video for some help - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u7bpysO3FQ
Normally when Excel processes data it utilizes all four cores on a processor. Is it true that Excel reduces to only using two cores When calculating tables? Same issue if there were two cores present, it would reduce to one in a table?
I ask because, I have personally noticed when i use tables the data is much slower than if I would have filtered it. I like tables for obvious reasons when working with datasets. Is this true.
John:
I don't know if it is true that Excel Table processing only uses 2 threads/cores, but it is entirely possible. The program has to be enabled to handle multiple parallel threads. Excel Lists/Tables were added long ago, at a time when 2 processes was a reasonable upper limit. And, it could be that there simply is no way to program table processing to use more than 2 threads at a time...
When I've got a large data set, I will set my Excel priority to High thru Task Manager to allow it to use more available processing. Never use RealTime priority or you're completely locked up until Excel finishes.
That is a good tip Jen...